


In Confidence

by RisuAlto



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: (kasumi has one drink), Alcohol, Friendship, Mass Effect 3, Nonbinary Shepard (Mass Effect), or at least gender not specified
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22647013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisuAlto/pseuds/RisuAlto
Summary: While searching for help decoding information on the geth for the fleet, Tali hears word of the Reaper assault on Earth.  The hand that reaches out isn’t the one she expects, but it helps them both remember the bigger picture.
Relationships: Kasumi Goto & Shepard, Kasumi Goto & Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Shepard & Tali'Zorah nar Rayya
Kudos: 7





	In Confidence

**Author's Note:**

> This is my gift for maeaca for Mass Effect Holiday Cheer. 
> 
> In the process, I have discovered my new favorite brotp in this game. As a note, this takes place right at the beginning of ME3, assuming everyone survived the suicide mission, and that Tali was banished from the fleet. (Sorry, Tali, it worked better for the story.)

The bar was mostly filled with humans that night.

Of course, humans normally had quite a presence on the Citadel, one that was growing rapidly over the past several years, but Tali’Zorah had visited this particular place looking for information many times. And never before had she seen so many humans that it made the other races look like minorities.

As Tali made her way towards the bar itself, she wondered for a moment if there was a human holiday happening that she didn’t know about. That notion quickly dashed itself, though, when she realized the humans were speaking only in low tones. Some didn’t speak at all. Many had eyes rimmed with red, focused on something thousands of parsecs away.

The holovids in the bar were no help either, all playing advertisements or re-runs of old media. Tali suddenly regretted brushing past all of the vid screens in her haste to get here, having ignored the news in favor of meeting that supposedly-discreet analyst. She’d been eager to make the meeting, hoping that person’s work might help her further understand how to parse communications through the geth collective consciousness. Yet, as she looked around, she didn’t see who she was looking for.

“If you’re looking for a seat, you won’t find one,” said a voice from behind Tali. She turned on her heel, only to realize she’d been nearly pressed up against the bar counter. The woman who spoke was a human, hair tucked up into a twist at the nape of her neck, though a few defiantly curly wisps still fell around her cheeks. Tali guessed she wasn’t terribly old, but she didn’t look young, either. Maybe that was just the tightness in her brown eyes and the tired frown, though. “And, no, before you ask, I’m not gonna kick them out tonight, no matter how drunk they are. You can leave if you don’t like it,” she added, putting a hand on her hip.

_Rude,_ Tali wanted to say, but the woman looked like she was silently preparing for a fight she didn’t really want, and Tali wondered how many different people she’d told off already tonight. So, swallowing her indignance, she said, “I’m just looking for someone.”

The human relaxed minutely. “Then, I guess you’ll fit right in, in a sort of way,” she said. “Drink? I’ve got permission to break out the good stuff today, if you’re looking.”

Tali raised her eyebrows, though the bartender obviously couldn’t see her expression behind the mask. “Real alcohol?” she asked, voice a little too loud before she reined it in.

“It’s an occasion,” the woman said, shrugging.

“What occasion?” Tali replied.

The bartender stopped moving, suddenly, as though caught in a seeker swarm, and Tali’s breath stopped. After a moment, they both recovered. The human drew close, leaning over the bar with fury weighing down her features. With a voice so low it could get lost, like the hum of a ship’s engine, she demanded, “You been living in stasis? Or under a rock, quarian?”

So, Tali really _should_ have checked the news. “N-neither,” she said quickly, keeping her voice as soft as she could. “I was just in a hurry. Did something happen?”

All Tali got as an answer was a scoff and the _click_ of a holopad against the countertop. The bartender had turned her back, answering a lazy wave from another patron. As Tali became more and more aware of the atmosphere in the bar—almost a miasma for how suffocating it was, really—picking up the holopad filled her with a quivering, sinking feeling.

It was open to a single news article, the header of which was a looping, silent video clip showing a Reaper ship firing into a twilight skyline. The laser obliterated one shuttle, then another, then another. Each one burst on contact, glittering pieces of burning metal erupting and then hurtling towards the city below like falling stars into an ocean, if stars could be blood-soaked and jagged and the ocean was made of smoke. The laser also eviscerated part of a large, tower-like building before swinging towards the camera, which whited out seconds later.

A second of static. Another. Then the video repeated.

Tali’s eyes were locked in a similar cycle, scanning over and over across the headline. _REAPERS ASSAULT EARTH, COMMAND CENTER OBLITERATED, EVACUATION UNDERWAY_ , it said.

“What,” Tali whispered.

Another patron came up beside her, leaning against the bar and saying something that was unintelligible to Tali in the moment. Probably calling for the bartender, she’d realize later, but for the moment, all she could focus on was the news report.

She began to scroll, quickly, eyes scanning the article for details. Death toll as of yet unknown, estimated in the dozens of thousands but probably higher, a few names of high-ranking Alliance officers reported missing, fleets destroyed, quotes from those who survived. Instructions from the government to limit non-vital communication to keep the data streams operating, advisories against travel to Earth.

_The Alliance Navy’s command is devastated,_ concluded the article. _Admiral Hackett, the commanding officer during what is surely the greatest military disgrace in recent history, was unavailable for comment. The only certain thing is that Earth is now, officially, a warzone._

No mention of Shepard. Tali supposed it made sense—her friend had been stripped of rank following the Alpha Relay incident, and the news outlets weren’t going to care about the fate of one person facing a court-martial in the face of all of this. She _wanted_ to believe that no news was good news, but…

“Shit.” She couldn’t stop the curse from venting out of her (literally).

“Tell me about it,” said the person who’d been standing next to her. The person—who looked human but was wearing a hood that hid any real defining features—was slowly swirling a drink in one hand, resting a single hip against the bar, and had clearly been reading the pad over Tali’s shoulder.

The voice was strikingly bright and unbothered, though, especially for a human right now. Tali felt like she could identify more with the people mourning and worrying and everything in between, than she could with this kind of casual…well, _casualness_ , she supposed.

“Did you know someone?” the hooded figure asked, nodding towards the pad that Tali still clutched in her right hand.

Quickly, Tali uploaded the article’s source information to her omni-tool, and put the pad back on the counter for the bartender. “Does it matter?” she asked, glancing around the room again to see if that analyst was here yet.

“Always,” said the figure, entirely too pleased. Tali barely suppressed a shiver and _didn’t_ suppress her sigh as she noticed her contact still hadn’t arrived. “Jireh’s not gonna make it, you know.”

_Jireh?!_ Tali felt her eyes grow wide. There was no way. She jerked her head back to face the hooded person. Their lips were now fixed in a slight, lopsided frown. Tali traced every arch of the human’s features that she could see, hoping to catch anything else about their face. If this person knew who she was supposed to meet, but then said something like that, it set Tali on edge faster than mentioning the geth. But even though she was shorter than this person (who was almost certainly human, at least), Tali couldn’t get a good view of their face through the hood. And everything that she could see was almost frighteningly indistinct. Average. _Nothing_ stood out.

“Oh, calm down. He asked me to tell you something came up, which is his very professional way of saying he’s been trying to call Earth since the attack.” The figure spoke, but Tali quickly realized that their lips weren’t moving beyond a slight relaxation from frown to neutral line. Which meant that whoever this was, they’d hacked directly into her omni-tool. Into her _suit_. Tali’s heart rate kicked up, thundering in her chest.

She raised a hand to her omni-tool, quickly fidgeting with the communication settings. That, at least, would explain why she couldn’t pin down the voice. It was being run through at least a few modulators before actually arriving in her ears. “What if I don’t believe you?” Tali asked, breaking the connection between her suit and this strange human with a dark sort of satisfaction. “Hacking into my suit doesn’t exactly inspire any confidence.”

The person’s lips made a slight _o_ shape as she glanced between Tali’s omni-tool and her face. Then, a slow, small smile appeared, and Tali watched as a holographic shimmer washed across the figure. The grey-and-white casual outfit melted away to a tight-fitting black and white combat suit, and while the hood remained, Tali immediately recognized the purple markings on the person’s lower lip.

“Well, now,” said Kasumi Goto, voice now clearly recognizable, “you breaking the connection without breaking a sweat means I have more to work on. But you _are_ Tali’Zorah.”

“Kasumi,” Tali said, relaxing _very_ slightly. “You’re friends with Jireh?”

Kasumi shrugged. “More or less. He doesn’t know who I am, really,” she said. “But, in light of the circumstances, I figured I could pass on a message.”

Biting her lip, Tali stared hard at Kasumi’s still-obscured face. “Bullshit,” she said after a moment. “Jireh could have just sent a message, like every other time we contacted each other. Why did you _really_ come here?”

“I figured if I was looking for one old friend, the best place to start was another,” Kasumi said slowly. “You saw for yourself that the news isn’t exactly interested.”

Tali leaned back against the bar. So, Kasumi, too, was looking for Shepard. And if neither _she_ nor Kasumi could confirm whether Shepard was alive or dead, then…

“I guess we just have to wait,” she said at last. The words were like chalk on her tongue, and Tali was suddenly very jealous as Kasumi took an easy sip of her drink.

Setting down the glass, Kasumi shrugged. “I’m not waiting,” she said, that infuriatingly casual tone leaking back in. “If Shepard’s unavailable, I’ll find another way to do what I’ve got to do. Whatever it takes to stop the war, right?”

_It’s what Shepard would want_ , Kasumi didn’t say, but Tali felt it anyway. She also didn’t miss the way Kasumi said, _unavailable_ , like this whole situation on Earth is a minor inconvenience.

“You think Shepard’s alive,” she said. It wasn’t really a question, but neither was it an accusation.

“You don’t?” Kasumi returned.

Tali inclined her head in agreement. She signaled to the bartender for a glass of water and a straw. When it arrived, the bartender set down the glass and picked up her holopad, turning back to the other customers. Tali looked to the side, half-expecting to see nothing but empty space. 

Yet, Kasumi remained, calmly sipping her drink and watching the room. “They’re all paralyzed,” she said. It sounded like the way Tali would make an observation about a particularly cool, but destroyed spaceship.

“Their planet is at war,” Tali said. “Thousands are dead with no warning signs. Maybe millions. They don’t even know yet.”

“They _should_ have known,” Kasumi said, setting her jaw. There was a distinct lack of empathy in what Tali could make out of her expression. “They just didn’t listen.”

Tali held the glass in her hands so tightly she worried it might break (before remembering these glasses were probably made to withstand krogans). “It’s not their fault,” she said, looking down. “Not these people, I mean. The Council chose not to listen to Shepard, but these people never got that choice.” _But everyone suffers equally._

“At least they can’t ignore it anymore,” Kasumi said, but Tali saw her soften _just_ a little bit. Or maybe that was another hologram flicker.

“I just wish people didn’t have to die, you know?” Tali sighed, taking a long drink of her water.

Kasumi turned her head to regard Tali in a strange sort of way, head tilted and a peculiar twist to her lips. “You’re soft,” she said shortly, but a real (if microscopic) smile followed the words. Then, Kasumi downed the rest of her drink in a single gulp, plopping the glass back down on the counter with a satisfied smirk. “Well, then, if the goal is to stop more people from dying, I think I’ve got work to do.”

“We all do,” Tali agreed, already beginning to think of other people she could ask for help with her data. The faster the situation with the geth was resolved, the faster she could appeal to the admirals for help with the Reapers. Finding someone on such short notice, though, would be difficult, so Tali was already starting to visualize the problem again herself.

“See you around, Tali’Zorah vas Normandy,” said Kasumi, brushing past the quarian as she re-activated her hologram and vanished, even without fully cloaking, like mist in a storm.

“See you,” Tali said to no one as she faced back to the bar. When she went to set down her glass, though, something caught her eye. Lying on the electric blue lighted counter, right where her glass had almost gone, was a tiny quantum chip. Tali looked up and over her shoulder, but Kasumi was long gone.

Quickly, Tali snatched it up with her other hand, putting the glass down so she could scan the chip with her omni-tool. As expected, the non-quantum computer couldn’t read the chip’s full contents, but it _did_ contain a ReadMe. Tali opened it, shielding her omni-tool display from the rest of the room with her body.

_Put this and your data in a quantum core machine. 18 hours, max, and you’ll have what you need. Yes, it’s that good. No, don’t thank me. This never happened._

Tali shook her head fondly. She would likely never get the chance to ask who Kasumi could _possibly_ have stolen such decryption software from (18 hours? Really? As a guarantee? Who in the galaxy even _had_ decryption that good?), but she wasn’t going to argue. Kasumi had a point, after all.

The galaxy didn’t stop for one compromised planet. Tali knew that all too well, and the humans would figure it out soon enough. But it wasn’t her job to wait for them to catch up, just like it hadn’t been Shepard’s job to waste time arguing about the Reapers when someone _should_ be stopping them.

Curling a protective fist around the chip, Tali left her half-full water on the counter and walked out of the bar with purpose. Now that the information had been planted in her brain, it felt like every holovid she passed was covering the Reaper attack on Earth, and she couldn’t help letting her eyes wander to one of them. 

_Keelah se’lai_ , she thought to herself as she felt the sharp edges of the chip through her suit. _By the homeworld I hope to see one day_. No matter what, Tali would not waste this gift. And yet, also, as she watched that same skyline from the article burn, a new thought occurred. 

_Inszelah se’lai_.

_By the friends I hope to see one day._

Whether or not Shepard lived after the assault on Earth (and the harder Tali thought about it, the more she was sure that Shepard _would_ , because, well, it was Shepard), the commander had people like her, like Kasumi, like Wrex and Garrus and so many others, who would make sure that what Shepard believed in would survive.

Tali, the hidden asset of the quarian fleet, would see this conflict with the geth to an end; and then, Tali’Zorah vas Normandy would face the Reapers. Because, she thought, glaring at the image of the Reaper ships on screen, even Shepard would need friends for that one.


End file.
